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Early age at menarche is associated with an increased risk of preeclampsia and adverse neonatal outcomes: a 6‑year retrospective study

  • Maternal-Fetal Medicine
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

Preeclampsia affects between 2 to 8% of pregnancies worldwide and is associated with significant adverse outcomes for both mothers and their offspring. The present study aims to investigate whether there is a correlation between early age at menarche and an increased risk of developing preeclampsia and experiencing adverse neonatal outcomes.

Methods

The study involved a review of medical records of 4227 pregnant women who gave birth at The First Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu Medical College between January 2017 and December 2022. The collected data included demographic characteristics, clinical manifestations of preeclampsia, laboratory indicators, gestational complications, and neonatal outcomes. Pregnant women were categorized into four groups based on their age at menarche (≤ 12, 13, 14, and ≥ 15 years). Logistic regression analysis was conducted to calculate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the association between different menarche age groups and the risk of preeclampsia and adverse neonatal outcomes.

Results

Pregnant women who had an age at menarche of ≤ 12 years had a higher risk of preeclampsia than women who had their menarche at 13, 14, and ≥ 15 years of age, with adjusted ORs (95% CIs) for preeclampsia of 1.00 (reference), 0.78 (0.45–0.91), 0.76 (0.59–0.88), and 0.73 (0.56–0.94), respectively. The predictive efficacy of age at menarche for preeclampsia was assessed with a sensitivity and specificity of 85.2% and 76.4%, respectively, and an AUC of 0.82. Moreover, infants born to women with an age at menarche of ≤ 12 years had a higher risk of adverse neonatal outcomes, including small for gestational age, preterm birth, low birth weight, neonatal respiratory distress syndrome, and neonatal intensive care unit admission.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that an early age at menarche is associated with an increased risk of preeclampsia and adverse neonatal outcomes. This information could be useful for obstetricians to identify women at risk for preeclampsia early on and implement timely interventions to reduce the incidence of preeclampsia and associated adverse neonatal outcomes.

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Data availability

Relevant data for this study are presented in the article. Any further data are available by contacting the corresponding author and providing recommendations concerning non-commercial use and privacy protection from their institutions.

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Funding

This work was supported by grants from The First Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu Medical College (CYFYGQ24, 20Z104), Sichuan Medical Committee (Q20075), and Chengdu Medical Scientific Research Project (No. 2022182).

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Author notes

  1. Xuehua Cheng and Ying Jiang contributed equally to this work and share the first authorship.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Obstetrics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, 610500, China

    Xuehua Cheng, Ying Jiang, Xiaofeng Chen & Shaoxing Li

  2. Department of Gynecology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, 610500, China

    Chaolin Huang

Authors
  1. Xuehua Cheng
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  2. Ying Jiang
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  3. Xiaofeng Chen
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  4. Chaolin Huang
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Contributions

All authors read and approved the publication of the article. XC and YJ contributed to the study design and interpretation of the data. XC contributed to the collection of data. CH and SL contributed to the drafting and revision of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Chaolin Huang or Shaoxing Li.

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The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

Ethical approval

The study complied with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Ethics Committee of The First Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu Medical College (No. CYFY2714354).

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Written informed consents were obtained from all participants before the study.

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Cheng, X., Jiang, Y., Chen, X. et al. Early age at menarche is associated with an increased risk of preeclampsia and adverse neonatal outcomes: a 6‑year retrospective study. Arch Gynecol Obstet (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-023-07256-6

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